Fire up these listens while you prepare dinner to ensure you’re cooking with gas
Some people see cooking as a communal hobby, an act of generosity and nourishment to be shared with friends and loved ones. Others see cooking as a solitary skill to be mastered over time. And some treat cooking like an art form. Then there are the master chefs who devote their entire lives to the world of food preparation and whose culinary creations can rightly be called masterpieces.
What does each have in common? They all love cooking from home and they’re always looking for ways to improve the experience.
Whether you're a culinary pro or a burgeoning chef looking to master the basics, the right audiobook or podcast makes a perfect pairing for a night in at the countertop. Making cooking while listening your new routine is easy with queued up and ready to play.
Below, you’ll find three categories: titles that help you master the fundamentals; those that immerse you in the lifestyle of cooking and high-octane to help keep you motivated while you’re slicing and dicing.
Make the perfect listen part of your mealtime mise-en-place and prepare to level up your cooking game.
Master the Fundamentals with These Culinary Guidebooks
The most helpful books in the kitchen don’t have to be recipe books (though many are!) and sometimes a book that guides you through the processes or the science behind cooking can be the most helpful. If you’re interested in understanding the process of cooking, here are some titles you can rely on.
Samin Nosrat’s challenges the notion that learning how to cook requires following recipes. Instead, it gives you the tools to create your own.
As the title suggests, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat breaks cooking down into four major categories. It not only teaches you how these different components work, but how they work together to make food taste better. While this title puts theory first and uncovers the science behind food preparation, it never gets bogged down in chemistry.
Another great guidebook is by J. Kenji López-Alt, an audiobook digest of some of the best content from the experimental blog of the same name, applying scientific rigour to the American food landscape. You might know J. Kenji López-Alt as Serious Eats’ culinary wunderkind and here he looks at how food operates even down to the molecular level, proving that you can teach deep subjects without being patronizing
López-Alt’s method is surprisingly simple. He experiments with several different ways you can prepare a dish, and then chooses his preferred method, telling you why.
You’ll learn a great deal when you listen to this title, including, for example, why vodka is an imperative ingredient in vodka penne (it helps cut through the sweetness of the tomatoes and cream).
